


The Desert in Our Blood

by PoisonousCephalopod



Series: and you remember [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types
Genre: Darth Vader Redemption, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fix-It, Gen, Leia helps free the slaves, Luke is just along for the ride, Obi-Wan misunderstands the situation completely, Slavery, T for violence, Tatooine, Vader frees the slaves, executions, father daughter bonding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:02:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28982310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoisonousCephalopod/pseuds/PoisonousCephalopod
Summary: In the wake of the Death Star's destruction over Alderaan, Obi-Wan believes Vader and Leia are both dead… until suspicious news of Jabba's overthrow and a new, democratic government on Tatooine leads him to wonder if not all is as it seems.Meanwhile, Leia goes on a road trip with her new captor/rescuer, and wonders why the kriff the former Dark Lord of the Empire is so dedicated to freeing slaves.
Relationships: Darth Vader & Leia Organa, Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi, Kitster Chanchani Banai & Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Leia Organa
Series: and you remember [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2094576
Comments: 203
Kudos: 301





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Wooo! Glad to finally have this up. My tentative schedule for this is to update every two weeks, but I may change that to weekly if I can get a good buffer built up. (We'll see if that happens. Chapter three is being a pain.)
> 
> The story will be at least four chapters, probably more, depending on how well I restrain myself once we get close to the climax.

Anakin Skywalker was dead.

It had been true from a certain point of view when he'd told Luke on Tatooine, and now, with the destruction of the Death Star, it was even more so. There were multiple sources of Imperial intelligence placing Darth Vader on the Death Star in the hours before it's destruction, along with Princess Leia. They were both dead.

The spies had said he'd interrogated her before the station had blown. Had that been the last thing he'd ever done? Torture his own daughter?

Obi-Wan tightened his fists and tried to be relieved that the Sith Lord who had terrorized the galaxy for so long was gone, but all he could feel was empty.

"Ben! Ben! Have you seen this?!"

Obi-Wan turns around, tearing his eyes away from the blank spot in the sky where days before there had been a moon-sized battle station to see a sandy-haired boy jogging towards him.

"Luke," he says, voice coming out sharper than he intends it to. "I am pleased you are enjoying Alderaan, but if you're here to tell me about another plant or fountain, I will be forced to remind you that I have visited green planets before."

Luke's grin is impervious to his sarcasm. "No. It's the news from Tatooine."

Obi-Wan bites back a comment about the only newsworthy things to ever happen on Tatooine being people dying in podraces and record-setting moisture yields.

He was dismissive enough of his first Padawan's emotions, and he's never been able to stop wondering if being less cutting in Anakin's youth would have led to him being less mistrustful in those last days. He will not repeat the same mistakes twice.

"What is it, Luke?"

"Someone's overthrown Jabba!"

Obi-Wan's brain momentarily freezes.

Excuse him, someone had done _what?_

"And it wasn't even a crime lord! The news says they're organizing _democratic elections."_

That… that can't be right. Obi-Wan has always kept an ear close to the ground while guarding Luke on Tatooine. He would have _known_ if there was some sort of revolt brewing.

"Luke…" he says carefully. "It's not uncommon for criminal governance to hold rigged elections for the sake of a cleaner image."

Less common, since the Empire, but still far more likely than _legitimate democracy_ on _Tatooine._

"No!" Luke shoves a datapad into Obi-Wan's hands, shaking his head emphatically. "Look at this! They already have an interim queen and she's a _twilek slave girl._ Or _was_ a Twilek slave girl, because they also have a constitution and slavery is illegal now!"

Obi-Wan stares at the screen. There is, indeed, a constitution, and he numbly opens it and begins reading.

It's a real constitution. A good constitution, and one that seems oddly familiar, too, like he's read it before…

Bail agrees. 

"It's the Nubian constitution," he says, when Obi-Wan asks him. "The old Nubian constitution, from before the Empire--though it looks like it's had several sections of ours grafted in as well. And there are a few… other sections that seem distinctly... Tatooinian. I'd guess those were added by someone else, probably their interim queen. You said she was a former slave."

He looks to Luke, expression contorting. "And you said this was written by a couple of bounty hunters?"

Luke shrugs. "That's what the news outlets seem to think? There's not a lot of information on the people who did it." A look of curiosity crosses his features. "What do the Tatooinian sections say?"

"They include a lot of extremely specific and harsh punishments for certain crimes relating to slavery, including vengeance killings and executions by both rancors and something called a Sarlac" Bail grimaces. "I'm not sure I want to know what that is."

"You don't," Obi-Wan agrees.

"Huh," says Luke. "I wouldn't have expected that from Queen Oola. I mean, execution, maybe, but she doesn't seem like the type to be that… brutal."

"We'll have to look into it when we get back," says Obi-Wan, stroking his beard. "I know you… approve of this, Luke, but whoever did this is an unknown. Their motives could be less benevolent than they appear."

Luke nods, bouncing, and assures Obi-Wan that of course he knows that, he's not an idiot, while Obi-Wan's fingers tighten around the datapad.

He can't tell if it's his paranoia and grief playing tricks on him, or if the force really is trying to tell him something, but there is something _about_ this.

Anakin is dead, he knows. Has been dead for years--but everything about this feels like him. Tatooine. Freed slaves. A Nubian constitution and a girl who used to dance for Jabba as a queen.

It's everything he would have wanted. Everything he had planned, once, before the war and the Jedi and the chancellor had broken down his hope so completely there was nothing left. All of it together, happening just days after Vader's death can't be a coincidence. 

Obi-Wan puts it down to the cruelties of Force, instead.

***

In the beginning, Leia had thought that whatever she was doing with Vader might be something akin to starting an independent rebel cell with only two people, but freeing the slaves of Tatooine could not be more different from the Alliance.

The Alliance had been all secrets and espionage. Lives had hung in the balance, but there hadn't been much outright brutality, not until that last day where they'd been caught with the plans. On Tatooine, everything is closer. She sees tracks of tears cutting clear paths over dusty skin, sees so many beings shot that the bright lines of blaster fire burn behind her eyes even when they're closed.

She doesn't like the executions, but she doesn't find them quite as horrifying as she thinks she should. It's hard to, after seeing a child blown to pieces in front of her eyes, after meeting his mother in the next town--sold, two years before--and hearing her sobbing screams when she learns of her son's death.

That woman executes her son's killer herself.

The part of Leia that is Alderaanian hates it but the part of her that has always been blazing fire and hunger for justice wouldn't stop her if she could.

Vader himself gets stranger the longer they stay on Tatooine.

He seems to belong to the deserts in a way that he distinctly shouldn't. He slides into place here like it's where he was always meant to be, as much a part of the landscape as the sandstorms and the cliffs. Leia is an outsider, as much as she is a beloved one. She doesn't speak Huttese, doesn't understand what it means to share water or recieve a Japor snippet or take back your freedom for yourself. Vader, somehow does.

It's unsettling to watch all the things that made him Vader in her eyes drop away so easily. He still carries his lightsaber, but there comes a day when Leia realizes she hasn't seen it turned on in weeks, opting instead for the beat-up blaster rifle he'd brought along in order to comply with the strict method-of-execution laws he'd forcibly added to the constitution. And his accent, the heavy, Imperial Standard meter that has pronounced judgement impartially on countless worlds, loosens into a thick outer rim drawl in a matter of weeks.

The accent is… disconcerting. Despite the deep bass and mechanical edge and diction that still sounds like it was drilled into him at an Imperial Center diplomatic academy, it still sounds human in a way she's not quite able to square with him, even having traveled with him as long as she has. It's all wrong, and Leia finds herself searching harder and harder for the reason the Dark Lord of the Empire can fit in on Tatooine and she can't.

She finally finds out when they get to Mos Espa

"You can't kill me!" the wrinkled old Toydarian gasps as Vader drags him to the square to stand with the others in this town who are marked for death. "I've never detonated a transmitter!"

Vader laughs, low and bitter. "Then it's a good thing ripping families apart also merits execution."

The Toydarian's jowls wobble as he shakes his head. "I've never sold a family apart!"

One hand, at Vader's side, curls into a fist, and Leia has a feeling that if this weren't already an execution, the Toydarian would be choking to death.

"Shmi Skywalker," Vader says, voice ominously steady. "You sold her son to Jedi thirty-two years ago. You had full opportunity to let them take them both, but you refused."

"You have no proof!" the Toydarian shouts. "You can't kill me over ancient allegations!"

Vader shoots him.

Leia gapes. Gapes at the holes burned through the Toydarian's chest--three of them, the mark of vengeance-for-family. Gapes at Vader, as he casually slings his blaster rifle back onto his back.

Suddenly, a couple of things make a lot more sense.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obi-Wan and Luke visit Tatooine and find some answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost forgot to upload this chapter, oops. Very glad I didn't, that would have been a bad way to start out my first fic with an actual update schedule.
> 
> THANK YOU ALL to everyone who was so positive towards the first chapter! I would've written this anyway but it was exciting so many of you were also waiting for it :)

Tatooine feels different.

He can see it in the people--children play along the edges of the streets, their shouts and laughter freer than he's ever heard it, and adults in scrappy clothing walking through the market with a a new straightness to their spines--but he can feel it in the force, too.

It isn't _lighter,_ exactly. The air is too full of violence for that; still tangled with impressions of fear and hatred and death along with burning, fiery hot exhilaration, but he can tell that it will be, in time, the tight, salt-soaked knots of misery that have always festered beneath the surface finally cut.

No. There is still darkness here, but the force ebbs and flows in a strangely balanced tide, the deeper parts of the dark settled like a sleeping krayt dragon while the light thrums with energy--refreshingly _alive_ in a way Obi-Wan hasn't felt since he was a crecheling.

"Luke!" A high pitched voice yells "Luke!"

Obi-Wan turns, just in time to see a small Zabrak girl, probably only six or so years old, throw herself at his new apprentice.

A faint _oof_ escapes Luke as he catches her, but he recovers quickly, smiling crookedly down at her as he remains his balance. "Hi Chella."

"Look at this!" she raises her arm and beams up at him.

Obi-Wan is confused for a moment why she's showing him an empty arm before he sees the thin white scar line slicing across the girl's wrist. It's straight and surgical, and it only takes a second to realize what it's from--a slave chip removal.

Luke notices a second earlier than Obi-Wan does and laughs, sliding his hands beneath her arms before lifting her into the air and swinging her in a circle.

"We were freed by a princess!" the girl says after he sets her down, bouncing on the balls of her sandaled feet. "Me and mommy both! She had funny hair that looked like pallies on her head and she was almost as pretty as Queen Oola! I gave her a Japor snippet!"

Luke ruffles her hair, careful of the nubby horns that peak out through the brown curls. "I bet she really appreciated that."

The sounds of the market go distant, and Obi-Wan's eyes snap to the girl. "A princess," he says, throat dry.

"Mhm!" Chella's head bobs up and down in a nod. "A princess of a whole planet!" She straightens her back. "I can't be a princess ever because Tatooine doesn't have one, but when I'm grown up I'm going be queen."

Luke laughs. "I'm sure you will be."

"Chella," Obi-Wan says, voice tight. He has a very bad feeling about this. "What planet was this princess from?"

She screws up her face, lower lip poking out into a pout. "I think it was called… Aldrenn? Idunno. But she came here! To make a democracy!"

Alderaan. Obi-Wan's heart stops for a moment.

Leia.

He thinks a part of him had known it from the moment Chella said she'd met a princess, the force murmuring in his ear, but he hadn't wanted to believe it. Hadn't wanted to think about what it meant if it was true.

Because if Leia had made it off that station--

There was only one person who could have gotten her out that quickly.

Only one reason he would have done it.

"Alderaan," he says weakly. "The planet is called Alderaan."

"Wasn't the princess of Alderaan the girl from the hologram?" Luke says, voice rising with confusion. "Didn't she die on that massive battle station?"

"No," Obi-Wan says, slowly shaking his head. "I don't think she did."

Vader must have found out somehow that Leia was Anakin's daughter. Tortured it out of her, something in his mind whispers.

He winces.

Leia wasn't supposed to know the truth of her parentage any more than Luke was, but there must have been something Vader had found while rooting through her mind during that interrogation that had tipped him off. And once he'd found that…

She would have been an obvious choice for a new apprentice. 

Leia had strong shields, but there would be no hiding her immense potential in the force from Vader once he realized who her father was. He must have chosen to take her and run, rather than take her into the Inquisitorius where she'd be in easy reach of Palpatine. The Death Star--that'd probably been _him_ \--a declaration of war between him and his former Sith Master. 

He'd probably done it himself. He would have had access to the plans, and the trench run that had seemed so suicidal to the resistance's pilots during the frantic minutes the Death Star had hung over Alderaan would have been easy as breathing for him

\-- _Or_ \--the thought hits Obi-Wan like a stream of icewater--he'd made Leia do it.

Obi-Wan hadn't seen Leia face to face since she was small, but he knew from Bail how passionate was, how completely and totally devoted she'd been to the Alliance, and he remembers how brightly the force had burned in her as an infant.

Anakin had blown up a droid control ship from the inside when he was nine. If Leia was even half as attuned to the living force as he had been, she could have done it.

And if she _had_ done it, under Vader's guidance, she would have done it with the Dark.

He forcefully pushes that thought out of his mind. He knows all too personally just how fast and sudden Falling can be, but Leia isn't Anakin. She hasn't been raised in slavery or spent more than half her life under the personal attentions of a Sith Lord or had her mother die in her arms.

She also hasn't been trained, another voice in his mind whispers.

He silences it.

The only piece of it all that doesn't fit is why Vader would bring her to Tatooine. Why the two of them were freeing slaves, out of all things.

Obi-Wan's eyes flicker back, against his will, to the little girl's wrist, and a vision of a nine year old Anakin a few days into his apprenticeship, eyes lit up with excitement as he shows Obi-Wan the scar on his sternum where Master Che had removed his chip, crashes into his mind with so much clarity it physically hurts.

He closes his eyes and tries to force it away. He can't attribute Anakin's motives to Vader. It will only lead to foolish mistakes, and that's not something he can afford, not with Leia's soul on the line.

"Chella," he says, crouching to look at her at eye level. "Do you know where we can find the princess? Her father is very worried about her."

She shys away from him. "You're lying."

Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow at that, wondering for a moment if the child is force sensitive. A quick probe shows that she isn't, but her mind is wreathed in a thick cloud of suspicion nonetheless. 

"Why do you think he's lying, Chella?" Luke asks gently, also dropping to his knees.

Her guarded expression doesn't budge. "Because he is."

"I met the princess's family on Alderaan," Luke says. "They were sad she was gone."

"Not her father," Chella says, folding her arms across her chest. "The tall man with the armor and the droid breathing is her father. I figured it out."

Luke starts to shake his head, but Obi-Wan takes a deep breath and places a hand on his shoulder.

"Chella," he says, turning his eyes on her. "Do you know what adoption is?"

Chella's head dips, shaking a no.

Luke makes a choking sound and spins to look at him. "Wait, what?"

"Sometimes a baby doesn't have parents to take care of them," Obi-Wan says, ignoring Luke for the moment. "So someone else chooses to take care of them and become their parent instead. That's what happened with Leia. It wasn't safe for her birth father to take care of her, so she was given to someone else." He meets her eyes. "The father who raised Leia loves and misses her very much."

Luke continues to gape. "And her birth father is *Vader?*"

"Yes," he bites out.

It's a lie as much as a truth--as far as Obi-Wan is concerned, Leia is Anakin's, and only Anakin's. Vader had given up any claim he had to the twins when he choked Padmé half to death on Mustafar--when he'd proven--definitively--that there was nothing more important to him anymore than his Sith Empire, not even his family.

Obi-Wan still doesn't understand it. He isn't sure he will ever be able to understand it. Not from Anakin, who would have died, gladly, for any of them. Who had loved more violently and intensely than he'd ever done anything else. 

Vader isn't Anakin.

He is a Sith, and Leia is power, and he will have tried to claim her, the same way he had tried to claim her mother. As much as Obi-Wan hates it, it would be stupid to assume neither of them will mention it when he and Luke track them down, and he can't do anything to put Luke's trust in him at risk. Their stories have to match.

It leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

Chella's eyes light up at the answer. "I knew it! Tilii didn't believe me, but I knew! He acts like her father!"

Obi-Wan shakes his head. "The man in the armor is very dangerous. We need to find Leia so we can help her get home to the father that cares about her." 

Chella scowls at him. "Well I think they both care about her. And her Alderaan father had his turn already. So she should stay on Tatooine."

"Chella," says Luke. "Darth Vader is a bad man. He… he killed my father."

Chella winkles up her nose. "Your father must have been bad, then. He's scary but he only kills bad people. Like slavers. And people who hoard water."

Luke purses his lips. "I promise we won't make her come with us if she doesn't want to," he says softly. "But her Alderaan family is missing her a lot. We need to see her so we can tell them she's okay."

The little girl looks back at Obi-Wan for a long moment before seemingly making up her mind. "...Mos Espa," she says, turning back to Luke. "She said they were going there next."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter in two weeks! And in side announcements, I uploaded a one shot today with Vader and Ahsoka if any of y'all are interested in reading that.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vader has done realizations about himself and Leia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're back to Leia and Vader! 
> 
> Sorry for the shorter chapter this time! It started off longer than any of the others but sometimes Things Happen in revisions.

When night begins to fall, and it's time to find somewhere to stay the night, Vader leads them back to Watto's shop.

He can tell the moment Leia recognizes where they are because she stiffens, glancing again over the looming shelves of scrap and spare parts.

She bristles. "You can't seriously be intending to spend the night here."

"It is uninhabited."

She shoots him a baleful look. "It used to be inhabited."

Vader almost laughs. As if Watto's junk shop would be enough to drag up any kind of useful trauma after nineteen years spent living in _Mustafar._ "I am not bothered, young one."

She scowls at him. "I'm not so sure I believe that, _Skywalker._ "

Vader tenses.

If this conversation had happened two months ago, he probably would have thrown her through a wall for daring to speak that name, but he's self aware enough now to realize there's some truth to her words.

He's spent the last nineteen years being the antithesis of everything Anakin Skywalker ever was. Had thought he'd crushed that part of myself too thoroughly for it to ever come back.

And then he'd gone and thrown away everything he'd ever done for the Empire in a single reckless maneuver because his emotions had gotten the best of him, and if that wasn't an Anakin Skywalker move, he didn't know what was.

He's still struggling to process it. This--running around on _Tatooine_ of all places, helping a known rebel establish a _democracy_ \--is not what he'd thought he wanted. He is a Sith Lord. Sith Lords don't create governments for other people to run, or free slaves, or let impertinent young teenage girls order them around.

But Vader has. _Is._ And, as he searches himself, he can find no source of hate or powerlust strong enough to make himself stop.

He loves this. He loves this and he _hates_ it, because he'd thought himself too strong for love, thought he was _past_ being ruled by his attachments and his past as a slave and it turns out he is neither.

He thinks, maybe, in spite of all his power, he never stopped being Anakin Skywalker.

He's not sure he cares. For all he'd sacrificed, it's not like being Vader had ever been _better._

"It is fine, child," he says, feeling the corner of his mouth twitch upward behind his mask. "There are places on this planet that carry far worse memories than here."

Leia folds her arms over her chest. "There's still no reason to stay here. There are plenty of people who'd be happy to host us."

There probably are--have been, in every other town they'd visited--but that's beside the point. "We are not here only to sleep."

"Oh really?" she says. "And why else are we here, then? Privacy?"

"R11 requires modifications," he says, striding over to the nearest shelf of parts and beginning to scan it for anything useful-looking. "I refuse to work with an astromech that isn't equipped with rocket boosters."

It's not the full truth--there is more he wants to upgrade than just R11, but he almost doesn't dare say the rest of it out loud.

He's worn the suit for so long now it almost feels like a part of him. Vader is the suit--is superhuman strength and looming height, machine and death and faceless darkness.

Anakin isn't Vader anymore.

He picks up a component from off the shelf, thumbing away the faint layer of sand, and particles of grit cling to his gloves.

It's going to take more resources and time than they have right now to do anything more than the basics--there's a lot he won't even be able to touch without proper medical facilities and a med-droid--but his prosthetics are terrible enough that even in a junk shop on Tatooine there are things he can improve.

***

Leia wakes in the middle of the night to the cold, slithering feeling that something is wrong.

Her heart throbs in her ears as she stumbles out of bed, beating with an unexplained urgency, and an image flashes through her mind, clay and sand and desert-night cold. It fades as soon as it comes, disintegrating into nothing but the sensation of fear and pain.

She throws off her worn blanket, feet landing on the gritty surface of the floor before she's even fully awake, stumbling out the door and out the hall. She knows without knowing that there's still time, but not enough of it, slipping away like sand through the neck of an hourglass. 

They have to go. _Now_. 

A dim light illuminates the hallway, coming from the one room still awake, and Leia follows it. _Vader_. Good. She's not sure what he's still doing awake so late at night, but it's good that she won't have to wake him. 

Stalking into the back room, she blinks her eyes a few times to adjust to the brightness. R11 is there, plugged in to a power source but still activated, and Vader is bent over a work table practically buried in metal and scrap, piled up so high it partially blocks her line of sight. 

He moves, stepping around the table, and Leia has to choke back a shriek because _one of his arms is gone_.

"You should be asleep," he says, a faint note of disapproval in his tone. 

" _Why are you missing a limb?_ " Leia hisses, voice a choked whisper.

"It is cybernetic," he says, picking up a mechanical arm from off the table.

Leia stares at it for a moment in mesmerized fascination before pulling her gaze away. "How long will it take you to get that back on?"

There's a slight tilt of his helmet as he prepares to answer, but Leia cuts him off, deciding she doesn't care. Vader missing an arm is still enough of a menace to suit her purposes. She swivels on her heel, marching towards the doorway. "Never mind. We're leaving now. Grab a weapon."

She feels a heavy hand on her shoulder, pushing her to turn around. "There is a speeder behind the building. It will be faster."

She pushes his hand away, grabbing a blaster from the edge of the table. "Fine. Show the way."

He doesn't talk, thankfully, as he leads her outside. It's not til they've both climbed into the vehicle that he asks her where they're going.

She closes her eyes for just a moment, before blinking then open again and jabbing her finger eastward.

His head swivels to face her, and his hand on the controls of the speeder stills. Even without being able to see his eyes, there is the unshakeable sensation of them burning into her.

"Why are we going there?"

" _Instinct,_ " she forces out through gritted teeth."Very strong instinct."

His gaze bores into her, helmet tilted ever so slightly in the way she's begun to learn means examination.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin runs into someone he remembers.

Anakin wordlessly follows Leia's directions as he guides the landspeeder through the streets, pausing just long enough for her to give him a terse nod left or right every time they hit a split in the road. Her fingers are tightly clenched in her skirt, knuckles white, and she doesn't hesitate at all in her judgements.

The path they take is all too familiar.

It's been years, but Anakin remembers every turn on the way to the Most Espa slave quarters from Watto's shop. The shape of every building. The angle of every street. There's a part of him that expects Leia to command him right back to the doorstep of his old home, and he's almost confused when she doesn't, guiding him instead to one of the neighboring dwellings.

A shout rings from inside, followed by a scream.

Leia makes a move to run to the door, but Anakin raises a hand to stop her, throwing it open with the force, and two blaster shots fly out, the first going high over both their heads. Leia jumps out of the shooter's sightline, but Anakin doesn't bother to move, letting the second glance off his armor.

Standing inside the door, a Weequay woman stares at him, blaster still smoking in her shaking hand. 

Behind her, a bulky twi'lek with an electroprod stands over a dark haired human man. A trio of children with matching coloring cling to the human man's legs, shrinking into his shadow.

"Put down your weapons," says Anakin, breath hissing through his respirator as he stalks through the door.

The Weequay woman drops her blaster, stumbling backwards far faster than she should with a blaster rifle still trained on her.

The twilek is cooler, slowly taking a step backwards before easing his fingers off the electroprod and letting it fall to the ground. Anakin doesn't miss the tightness in his knuckles and the anger writhing around him in the force.

It's the kind of hot, red hatred that calls for vengeance that had become all too familiar since he and Leia had started hunting slavers. So many of them seemed to think they'd been robbed, and had the simmering hunger deep down to retaliate accordingly. It was probably hypocritical of Anakin to be so disgusted by that, but he, at least, had never felt like he had a _right_ to own another sentient. He'd always known it was something fundamentally evil, even if as Vader he hadn't cared. Had forced himself not to care, because if he had, maybe he would have realized sooner that Anakin wasn't dead.

Leia steps in through the door behind him, blaster poised to shoot. "Who are you?" she asks, face twisted in a scowl.

"More slaver scum," Anakin answers for them.

The Twilek man's face twists. " _You,_ " he sneers. "You think you can come in here and do whatever you like, but it won't last. Do you think the rest of the syndicate won't come after you?"

"Oh, they will," says Anakin coolly. They haven't yet, either because they're still looking for an entire organization, or because they're still trying to stem the blood flow from all the operations he'd cut off at the knees when he'd killed Jabba. But they would come for him eventually. "They will not be successful. And it will be far too late for you."

The twi'lek does a good job of not showing his fear, but Anakin can feel the twisting stench of it in the force anyways. Good. 

"You are under arrest for assault and attempted kidnapping," Anakin says, tone blank. "Do you dispute these charges?"

The human man straightens up, shoulders still tense, and shakes his hair out of his face. "You can add attempted murder."

There's something oddly _familiar_ about him. Too familiar for him to just be one of the former slaves they'd helped free. The dispersed edges of his force presence lick at Anakin's as if looking for an old bond.

It takes Anakin too long to realize that's because it is, and when he does, he stiffens.

There aren't many traces of the boy he remembers in the face of the man before him, but based on where they are, based on the way he feels...

It's Kitster. Kitster Banai.

As soon as he thinks it, he knows it can't be anyone else. As a young padawan, freshly ripped away from Tatooine, Anakin had longed to see Kitster again far too much to forget him completely, in spite of all his early lessons on 'letting go' of attachments. He'd spent too much time dwelling on his visions of returning, daydreaming of the day he'd go back for him and his mother and everyone else he'd known and unchain them all. 

There's a twisted part of him that still wants the happy reunion he'd imagined then. It's stupid. He knows that if he'd come here before Leia, if the emperor had sent him to Tatooine and he'd come across Kitster and recognized him then, he would've killed him. He doesn't care, not that much, but…

He'd told Kitster about that dream, before being taken by Jinn. Told him he would come back for him. But first he'd been a Jedi Padawan that was too attached, and then he'd been a Jedi Knight who was fighting a war, and then Anakin had failed, and Darth Vader had had no room for dreams.

He wonders how long Kitster had waited for his childhood best friend Anakin to come back as a Jedi and free them all before closing the door on the idea. If it had been after the purge, when news finally came to Tatooine that all the Jedi were dead, or if it had been before. During the war, perhaps, when the holonet was flooded with images of Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, fighting for the rotten, sick, thing that was the republic at the head of an army of slaves.

He could have left the order then. Should have, as soon as he'd finished his training. It was what he would have done had he not forgotten what it was like to be that little boy on Tatooine. _Become a Jedi_ , his mother had said. He'd become a Jedi. He'd gotten what he'd joined them for, and then he should have gone home.

He's always known what his destiny was, and it was this. Freeing Tatooine. No Sith. No Jedi. Just the sand, and the desert wind, and the bodies of slavers at his feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was entirely supposed to be about Leia and Anakin dealing with Leia's force abilities, with this entire scene as like, a paragraph of summary, but it demanded more attention and then turned around and required 3x as much revision as any other scene in this story. So... hopefully we'll get to that next chapter?


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin actually talks to Kitster, and Leia's force powers are acknowledged.

Anakin doesn't say anything to Kitster after taking the slavers outside and executing them. There are two parts of him warring internally, one that can't bring itself to speak and one that wants to scream out who he is. That wants to pull his lightsaber off his belt and ignite it and say the name Skywalker and see Kitster's shocked face. It seems wrong on some level that Kitster doesn't know. But the mask is a wall between them, and Anakin says nothing.

Kitster doesn't want to know everything that's happened to Anakin in the last thirty years. Anakin doesn't want to tell him.

He's still only beginning to realize just how much he's lied to himself over the last nineteen years. He'd been so focused on progressing as a Sith, on _power,_ and for what? So he could play out some grand revenge plot against the Jedi? 

The only power he'd ever wanted was the power to save Padmé, and the Sith had failed in that every bit as much as the Jedi had. He should have left Palpatine as soon as he'd woken up after Mustafar.

"What happened to your arm?" Kitster asks.

"It was under repair," Anakin says. "Didn't have time to put it back on."

"You knew to come here."

"The princess did. She only brought me along."

"The princess." Kitster stirs the title in his mouth. "I'm surprised you're not more careful about throwing that title around. There are rumors."

Anakin shifts, and his armor creaks. "What kind of rumours?"

Kitster hesitates before speaking. "Rumours about a dead core princess and an Imperial enforcer"

Anakin's skin prickled. "Where did you hear this from?"

"Oh," Kitster's voice is light, but his eyes are still dark. "You know. You gather things. It's not hard to figure out she's the Alderaanian princess if you pay attention to talk. Neither of you have been very subtle."

"And me?"

Kitster doesn't blink. "Not everyone on Tatooine is entirely ignorant about the higher ups of the imperial military."

Anakin raises an eyebrow behind his mask. "Among the slave class, they are."

The corners of Kitster's mouth curl into a bitter smile. "I had special reason to care."

It feels dangerous to ask, but Anakin does, leaning forward slightly. "And what was that?"

Kitster doesn't answer at first. The silence lingers, cold and taut, until he finally looks up to meet Anakin's gaze. "What does the Jedi killer want with freeing slaves, Lord Vader?"

It's the first time Kitster has addressed   
him by name, and to hear him use _that_ name makes Anakin hate everything about the situation even more. It may only have been a day since he'd stopped using it himself, but even after so short a time, taking it back up sounds like going back to a cage.

An impulsive answer to Kitster's question rests on the tip of his tongue, and instead of checking himself, he lets it spill out. "I'm not going by Vader anymore."

Kitster's eyes are a challenge. "Then what are you going by?"

Anakin feels something dangerous, like the sparks on an electrified wire, one second away from jumping, as he opens his mouth. "Skywalker."

There's a long pause as Kitster stares at him, a flurry of microexpressions flickering over his features as he tries to process that. There's anger, first, and unimpressed disbelief, as if he can't believe Vader would dare to speak such a ridiculous lie, but Anakin can feel the moment when things shift and click and his tumult of emotion turns into blank shock.

There's a breath, and his mouth forms a shape before he breathes out, seemingly unable to bring himself to address _Darth Vader_ with Anakin's name. 

"You…" he says, something hoarse in his voice. "You better not be lying to me. I'll kill you for daring to use his name if…"

Anakin is stiff. "It is my name."

Before he was Vader, he would have leaned in and done something reassuring--hugged him, put a hand on his shoulder--but he doesn't remember anymore how to touch another human being. It feels wrong now, to do it with Vader's body, all steel limbs and hard armor. 

It doesn't matter, because Kitster leans forward and hugs him instead, resting his forehead against Anakin's chestplate. "You…" he says, choking up a little. "I thought you were dead."

His voice goes quieter, and he swallows. "I always watched the holos for you during the war, when I could… Anakin, I thought you were kriffing dead."

Anakin has to force himself not to move, damping down the panicky instinct to shove him away in the force. He's not a sith anymore. He doesn't care about sentiment making him weak.

He'd liked physical affection, when he'd been Anakin Skywalker. He can learn to like it again.

He wets the inside of his mouth. "I… Kitster…"

"No," Kitster shakes his head. "Don't. Don't try to explain anything. I know."

Kitster doesn't know. He can't. No matter how much information he has on Darth Vader. But it is permission, permission to say nothing, and Anakin takes it. 

***

When Leia wakes up the following morning and wanders back to the back room of the junk shop, Vader is still missing an arm. It's the other one this time.

"You have the force," he says, raising his head to look at her. His hands don't pause in their precise movements, and he wedges a multitool into the wrist of his disattached arm, cutting a wire without even looking down. Content to just leave her with that abrupt statement, apparently.

"Excuse me?" 

"The force." He waves his fingers at one of the shelves of parts lining the room, and the parts on it shift, drawing patterns in the fine layer of dust that covers the shelves.

"I'm afraid I'm not sure what you're talking about, Lord Vader," she says, planting her arms on her hips.

"Skywalker." 

He snaps back the correction with no hesitation, the complete and utter certainty in his tone a far cry from the simmering tension she'd sensed after calling him that the night before. 

Leia doesn't want to dive into the tempest of whatever must be going on in Vader's head to drive this sudden switch, so she doesn't. "Fine then."

His eyes linger on her, looking through her skin to something underneath, and she shifts where she stands, not liking it. 

"The premonitions you exhibited last night are typical of an untrained force-sensitive," he eventually states.

"What?" She actually laughs at that. "You think I have _Jedi_ powers?"

When he doesn't contradict her, the laugh trails off.

"It's not the force," she says. "The force lets people... move things with their minds, play with other people's heads. I've never done any of that."

"Those skills require training," he says, prodding at a wire on the arm on the table. It's fingers twitch. "Latent force sensitivity would more likely manifest as heightened reflexes and the ability to read others' emotions, along with unusually strong... instincts."

Her inhale is half a beat sharper than she wants it to be.

She doesn't want to even consider what he's saying, but memories brim at the back of her mind, and too many things about her that never quite made sense suddenly do. The way she'd always been prodigiously talented at piloting ships and speeder bikes, in spite of never being taught or putting in any real practice. The way she'd always been _too_ good at reading people. 

"All children in the Empire are tested for the force as infants," she says, fingers tightly tucked into her fists.

Vader's gaze on her feels too heavy, pinning her down where she stands. "Your parents are the reigning monarchs of a core world. It would not be beyond their power to alter your results."

It wouldn't have been. Her parents could have faked her test results, could've buried the real ones under a dozen layers of lies and deletions and deviation, could've done any number of things--but they still would've needed time. Time to reprogram droids, time to arrange for plants in the imperial military structure to handle her information--time they wouldn't have had. The Inquisitorious didn't give families a say-goodbye period. They administered their tests, and if a child's numbers were high enough, they took them or killed them right there.

They wouldn't have had time, unless they already knew.

Creeping doubts started to edge their way into Leia's mind anyway.

Leia's birth parents had died at the end of the war. Her father was infamous for having been close with several Jedi, and she knew that he and her mother, at least, had been friends.

Her birth mother, at least, had been friends with father, and he was infamous for having been close with several Jedi.

If force sensitivity ran in families… 

"My parents would have told me," she says.

"A mere awareness of one's sensitivity can make one easier to detect." says Vader, setting down some of his tools. "Given they intended to parade you in front of the _Imperial Senate_ once you reached an appropriate age, telling you would not have been wise."

"They didn't plan that," Leia says, instinctively snapping back. "That was my idea."

"Whose decision it was is irrelevant. What matters is that you are force sensitive, and untrained."

There's an… _expectation_ in his words, and Leia is suddenly aware of the air pressure around her.

"You want to train me."

It's not a question.

He inclines his head in acknowledgement. "Yes, young one."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Leia decides whether or not she wants to be trained, and possibly some more Luke and Obi-Wan. Been awhile since we've checked back with them :)
> 
> In other news--I've decided to stick with the two-week update schedule so I can try to get some of my other stories ready for posting instead of trying to get ahead on this one. I have another Vader Redemption AU I was working on before I started this that I have been neglecting, and I'm excited to get back into working on it so I can share it with you all ><

**Author's Note:**

> Updates every other Monday.


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